Two battalions of Rapid Action Battalion-7 and 15 have been deployed on the Cox’s Bazar-Chattogram highway today to ensure smooth relocation of Rohingyas to Bhasan Char.

Lt Col Ashique Billah, director of the legal and media wing of Rab headquarters, confirmed the development.

The government sources yesterday told this paper that the authorities were preparing to shift the first batch of around 2,500 Rohingyas to the island from the Cox’s Bazar camps within a couple of days.

According to a highly placed source, the first convoy of Rohingyas left Cox’s Bazar for Chattogram on ten reserved buses around 11:15 am.

There were around 423 Rohingyas in the initial ten buses.

The second convoy also left Cox’s Bazar around noon, with around 500 Rohingyas in ten other buses, sources added.

The move has triggered concerns among the UN and the development partners who are still waiting for an independent assessment of the Bhasan Char housing project.

The Tk 3,100-crore housing project, funded with public money, was taken after some 750,000 Rohingyas fled a brutal military campaign in Myanmar’s Rakhine and took shelter in Cox’s Bazar since August 2017. They joined some 300,000 other Rohingyas, who had fled previous waves of violence in Rakhine.